Peter Rough

Peter Rough is a senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia at Hudson Institute, which he launched in December 2022.

Mr. Rough writes and comments on United States foreign policy and regularly briefs official delegations, news media, public intellectuals, academics, and business leaders from around the world. He is a regular commentator on major radio and television networks and speaker at public and private forums. Mr. Rough also convenes several track 1.5 dialogues and conferences.

Previously, as director of research in the Office of George W. Bush, Mr. Rough assisted the former president with his memoir, Decision Points. In 2014, his highly acclaimed collaboration with Leila Fawaz on the social history of World War I in the Middle East, A Land of Aching Hearts, was published by Harvard University Press.

From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Rough served as associate director in the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, where he helped coordinate political strategy and outreach to key stakeholders. He has also completed stints as a policy analyst at the US Agency for International Development, where he was staff briefer to Administrator Henrietta Fore, and as an advisor to US Army Special Operations Command, where he analyzed unconventional warfare doctrine for the commanding general’s Strategic Initiatives Group.

Mr. Rough began his career at the Republican National Committee specializing in political research. A proud native of Des Moines, Iowa, he holds his BA, summa cum laude, from the George Washington University and MA in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he was a Cabot corporation scholar.

He is a member of the board of the Bastion Institute and previously served as a commissioner of the Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) Commission in Berlin. He has also helped edit Hudson’s journal, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology. Mr. Rough is on the board of the American Main Street Initiative, a think tank dedicated to advancing public policy solutions for everyday Americans, and has been named a next generation leader at several think tanks, including the Munich Security Conference.

Mr. Rough is a native German speaker.